


first is the worst, second is the best, and the third will come in time

by celebreultimaverba



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, F/F, First Second Time, Mission Fic, Porn with Feelings, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Trans Female Character, but they're not like a Thing, well it's a sleeping bag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 00:54:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17274056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebreultimaverba/pseuds/celebreultimaverba
Summary: Well, the first time was good.But Beau doesn't get past that. She doesn't want to.So when she meets Keg again, back up in Shady Creek Run while they're taking care of Caduceus, it's a little awkward.





	first is the worst, second is the best, and the third will come in time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [walkthegale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/gifts).



> Beau uses male-coded terms for her genitals in this one, but it's not a Thing. Take note before you read!

Of all the fucking people.

Of all the _fucking_ people to run into during their weird little excursion up north to figure out all of Clay’s fucking problems.

Of course, there were worse people! They could have run back into Lorenzo, no matter that they’d burned him from the inside out. They could have fucked their way up into the foyer of the hot tiefling what’s-her-name’s house, again. There were all manner of shady, shitty people that Beau could be thinking of hiding from, especially in Shady Creek Run.

Only _one_ of them was sitting in front of them, at the bar, nursing a mug of some sort of alcohol like its parents traded it for the ability to spin wheat into gold.

Damn Clay for being too skinny to effectively hide behind, and damn Fjord for a similar reason.

“That’s Keg,” Caduceus notes, perceptive as always.

“Oh, we should say hi!” Jester chirps. “She’s the girl that helped save us when we got kidnapped, right?”

Caleb nods, and Beau shares a second with him where they look Jester over again. Fjord and Yasha hadn’t been completely thrilled to come back up to the place they’d been kidnapped, but Jester’s stance on it was a little shakier to grasp. She’s seemed fine so far. Beau decides to continue panicking over re-meeting an old one-night stand, instead of worrying about the mental state of her friend. Panicking is a bit easier to settle. This has not happened to her often.

Well, it has, but not since she’s started travelling. The women in the town she grew up knew better than to try and talk to Beau after sleeping with her. She’s very afraid that Keg has no such understanding.

Especially considering everyone _else_ in Beau’s family does not have the same hang-ups about talking to Keg again. That is a signal of sorts, Beau is sure, that means that Keg is probably able to speak to Beau.

Which is fine.

Beau’s really, totally cool with it.

“Keg,” Nott says, at home at the bar of the tavern, nimbly making her way up onto the barstool next to the dwarf as if it doesn’t matter that the barstools are sized for taller races.

The dwarf startles, twisting to look at the goblin suddenly next to her at the bar. There’s a second or two of hesitation, then recognition as she blinks and sort of smiles. “Nott!” she replies, and there’s a second or two where neither of them really know what to do that ends in what’s probably a more awkward hug than any that Beau has given Caleb.

She’s grown out her beard a little, Beau notes as Keg pulls away and looks them all over. It’s hot.

“Hi,” she says. Her gaze seems to catch on Beau.

Damn it.

Beau knows better than to make this awkward, though. She’s better than that. If Keg insists on talking to her, Beau will talk right back.

“Hi yourself,” Beau replies.

“What are you guys doing back in this shithole?”

Beau gestures to Clay, who gives a little nod and wave. “There’s a blight. We’re investigating,” he explains.

Keg nods. Looks back into her drink. “Cool, cool,” she says.

Nott is the one who offers. “Do you want to help us?”

Jester claps, behind them. “Ooh! Yes! That would be really cool! Keg, you helped before, do you wanna help us again?”

She’s much too cute for her own good, Beau thinks, a bit annoyed, as Keg looks up in surprise. “Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that’d be really cool. I’d— I’d like that.”

Beau can _hear_ Jester’s grin. “Oh, good!”

Beau waits until she’s put up in a room and her face is buried in a pillow to groan at the new addition to their team.

“What was that for?” Jester asks, combing out her hair at the dirty mirror they’ve been afforded. Even the nice places in the Run aren’t great.

Beau debates discussing it. Ultimately, she decides that she wants to complain. “Keg’s still hot.”

“Oh, yeah, she is!” Jester pauses. “Why is that a problem? You like hot girls.”

“Not _after_ I’ve slept with them, Jes.”

This question is pondered for approximately two and a half seconds. “So sleep with her again.”

Beau does not answer. She doesn’t know how to. There’s a lot going on here that Jester doesn’t really get, because Beau definitely hasn’t told her. She doesn’t sleep with the same person a second time. She just doesn’t.

Sleep with Keg again. How ridiculous.

* * *

“We could, like, sleep together,” Beau suggests.

It’s not like she’s gonna sleep otherwise. She’s been hearing Keg’s metal plating clang against itself for the past half hour, from the dwarf shivering a little pitifully in the sleeping bag they’d found for her.

The clanging does not stop. “You— you sure?” Keg asks.

Beau sits up, unzipping her own sleeping bag. The cold hits her immediately. Fucking— gods. It practically punches her in the gut, the cold, and not for the first time this trip, Beau wishes she believed in sleeves. It doesn’t matter when she’s got a heavy cloak or robes on, or when she’s snuggled up well in her sleeping bag, but it definitely matters now, out in the wilderness, staking out half a mile away from the rest of their group, two by three by three to start closing in on whatever it was causing the blight.

Unlike most things they fought, this one couldn’t kill them in their sleep. So Beau feels a little safer in the two of them sleeping, in neither of them being on watch.

But even without the snow they’ve cleared from the ground, she feels less safe about Keg freezing to death in her metal armor and shitty extra sleeping bag.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Fucking— get over here. And take the damn armor off. It’s not helping you, and touching it will give me frostbite.”

Keg hesitates long enough that Beau almost zips the sleeping bag back up, flips over, and leaves her to whatever weird pride she’s holding onto, but she gets up and pads over to Beau’s side, trembling fingers starting to undo the clasps of her armor.

Beau draws her legs up under her and moves to help, because her own fingers aren’t tinged with cold like Keg’s are, and are more able to grasp at the buckles.

She resolutely ignores the familiar path her fingers trace, still-remembered from a messy room in the slaver’s den that stunk a bit of unwashed clothing and badly-tended wood. It’s practically burned into the darks of her eyelids, summoned up whenever Beau gets a room to herself. Pressing Keg against the door with her hips as she unbuckled the cuirass of her armor, the soft hiss of mail sliding off from around her neck and off her torso. She’d let Keg unlace her greaves while Beau started unbuttoning her doublet and— 

“Beau,” Keg says, and Beau realizes that her hands have paused, settled on Keg’s chest where she’d started and not finished unbuttoning the doublet, a bit far into the fantasy she comes back to too often.

She startles, hands drawing back and eyes flicking up to Keg’s face, half-expecting a complaint. Instead, she sees Keg’s tongue dart out to lick her cold-pale lips, and the fear of fucking this up lessens.

“Unlace my legs, too,” Keg tells her. “My fingers are fucking freezing.”

Beau nods, wordless, hoping this isn’t— isn’t Beau getting horny at an inopportune time, because it’s way too cold to send Keg back to her own sleeping bag and if Beau gets too worked up about this whole situation, Keg is bound to notice. Another part of the reason Beau doesn’t talk to the women she sleeps with after—they know way too much about her. Once Beau has whimpered in front of someone, they can never speak to her again.

Her sollerets goes first, then her greaves, and finally her cuisses, though Beau’s hands are trembling by then. She’s going to call it the cold. But it’s Keg’s hand, in her hair, her fingers stroked through it about halfway through Beau’s attendance to her armor. It’s not a hold, not really, but it’s a presence that Beau is not going to shake, damn the plan of speaking to her as little as politely possible.

“Thank you,” Keg tells her, and Beau sits back on her ankles, knees protesting despite the fact that the sleeping bag is protecting them from the worst of the hard, frozen ground.

“Yeah, yeah,” Beau replies, taking a breath when the hand in her hair loosens and lets her go. “Now, come on, you’re gonna freeze to death just standing there.”

“Then unbutton the rest of the doublet,” Keg says, and it sounds more like a gripe than an order, this time. Beau appreciates it, and the doublet is down in the pile with the rest of the plate as quickly as she can manage without popping the buttons off, too.

(Again. There’s a doublet button in the bottom of Beau’s pack somewhere. She said she’d give it to Nott, eventually.)

Keg kicks at Beau’s knees to get her to move, and Beau takes the hint, slipping her legs back into the sleeping bag and scooting over as much as possible. Keg is shaking, now, jaw clenched tight so her teeth don’t chatter. Beau bites her lip to prevent the same thing from happening to her.

 _“Fuck_ you’re cold,” Beau says, as Keg positions herself next to her.

“Shut up. You were the one that invited me to sleep here,” Keg replies, zipping up the sleeping bag.

“Because you were gonna freeze to death in that shitty sleeping bag,” Beau replies.

Keg pushes her shirt up, and Beau yelps loud enough that she’s worried for a second that she’s going to attract something curious and overlarge from the surrounding forest. But then Keg wiggles her fingers a little bit, and she jerks. “What the _fuck,”_ she gripes.

“My hands are cold. You said you didn’t want me to freeze to death, didn’t you?” Keg has a half-smile on her face, something cocky enough to make Beau’s stomach flip. “You’re warm. Let me take advantage.”

“Generally _this_ is not what people mean when they say take advantage.”

“Oh, my bad,” Keg replies, and shifts down the sleeping bag a bit. Beau is confused as to _why_ for half a second, before Keg shoves the same cold fingers down the front of Beau’s pants.

This time, Beau’s yelp is loud enough to almost _certainly_ alert some critter in the woods or another that they’re out here, and she can only hope that it’s at least _not_ loud enough that one of the other groups could hear it.

She shoves Keg’s hands away. “What the _fuck,_ get away.”

“Sorry, too far,” Keg apologizes.

“It’s fine,” Beau replies, taking Keg’s hands in her own and rubbing them for circulation.

“We should have gone with Caleb. He’s probably really warm in that… weird bubble of his,” Keg complains, and sighs quietly at Beau’s warm hands.

“Yeah. But we needed to split up, and we’re the people that can take a hit or two without needing a cleric.”

Keg hums, looking up. With the sleeping bag shared, her face is _very_ close. Beau swallows.

Keg doesn’t miss it, darkvision picking up the details of it all even without the moon shining through the treetops. Beau wishes there was enough room to roll over onto her other side. She’s not going to survive a night cuddled up to this particular dwarf. It’d be heaven if they hadn’t already slept together.

“Why are you being weird?” Keg asks.

Beau winces. “What are you talking about.”

“You’re being weird. _Caleb’s_ talking to me more than you are. It’s weird. Everyone’s noticed.”

“I don’t— it’d be weirder if I _were_ talking to you.” Beau doesn’t bother lying. She’s not _that_ good at it.

“Why? No it wouldn’t be.”

“Because we—” Beau is more embarrassed by this than she should be. She _obviously_ can’t talk with one-night stands. That’s— it’s not something people _question._ She gestures between the two of them.

“I didn’t think you’d get so blushing princess over this,” Keg observes.

“I’m _not_ blushing. It’s just weird, okay? Haven’t you ever had a one-night stand? It’s fucking _awkward_ the next day. You don’t stick around for a chat. It’s flirt, bang, transaction over. Awkward the next time you see them.”

Keg’s eyebrows draw together. “You really haven’t had repeat performances?”

“I have,” Beau defends. “Few rounds in a night kind of thing.”

“But not more than one night.”

“Sometimes there’s morning sex.”

Keg laughs, and shifts to prop herself up on an elbow. “Not what I meant. You really fuck it and forget it? No exceptions?”

Beau thinks, for a second, of Yasha. Of Jester. She shakes her head.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fuck you.”

“That’s against _your_ rules.”

“What’s your point?” Beau pushes herself up, too. Clearly Keg won’t let her just _sleep._

“I’m just saying that you’re the only one making this awkward,” Keg tells her.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m _not.”_

 _“Caleb’s_ talking more.”

Beau lapses into silence.

Keg nudges her with an elbow. “This hasn’t been awkward. Until now, anyway.”

Beau frowns. “That’s because you’re freezing.”

“Not anymore. You’re very warm.”

Beau rolls her eyes, and wishes again that she could roll over and ignore Keg. “So what’s your point? I should sleep with someone a second time, see what it’s like?”

“I mean.” It’s Keg’s turn to blush, now, though Beau can’t see that much detail in the dark. “If you want. But, I mostly think your group is cool. And you’re making shit weird.”

“...Fine. I won’t make things weird. I’ll talk to you.”

“Thank you.”

“But if you _wanna_ sleep together a second time…” Beau can’t resist.

Keg, who had started to settle down, jolts back up. “I— yeah. Yep, yeah, cool. We can do that.”

“Awesome,” Beau says, and kisses her.

It’s… not awkward. Beau almost wishes it were. But, no, Keg kisses like she knows how to kiss Beau. And— that makes sense, of course. She’s kissed Beau before, and vice versa. It’s just— it’s not _awkward._ It’s _good._

Her beard is longer, now, of course. Doesn’t scrape like the stubble did— that will be good for tomorrow, when they need to walk. First time they did this, Beau had stubble burn on her inner thighs for three or four days. She was very glad they had carts to sit on, rather than horses.

Keg seems a little stockier, too, when she presses up against Beau and grips at her upper arm.

Beau reconsiders the idea of one-night stands when she slips a leg in between Keg’s and the dwarf rolls her hips to take advantage of it, slow and heated. On their sides like this, Beau doesn’t really have to bend to make sure Keg can reach both her thigh to rub off on and her mouth. That’s— another thing, that’s not awkward this time. They’ve already kind of figured out the logistics of a dwarf and a human sleeping together.

Beau’s still not admitting that Keg is right.

And Keg isn’t making her, slipping a hand under her shirt again and the other gripping into Beau’s hair as they kiss. She pulls it, because— because she figured out about halfway through last time that Beau likes having her hair pulled, and she remembers for this time.

Beau’s breath stutters a little, and she feels the lips against hers curve into a half-smile.

Okay, so maybe Keg has a point. Beau can admit when she’s wrong. Things aren’t awkward.

Her hands go to Keg’s shirt, too, pulling it up so she can press her hands against the muscle there. Her stomach tenses under the attention, and Beau can feel the hard muscle of Keg’s abs underneath the belly fat protecting them. She presses, and Keg huffs a half-laugh.

“That’s right, you like muscle.”

“Did you get that from my actions now, or did you remember that?” Beau asks, a little annoyed that Keg decided to stop kissing.

“I remember all of it.”

Beau doesn’t reply. She gets what Keg’s saying, just— this is what she meant by awkward. Keg can’t just _say_ shit like that. Especially not in a tone like that.

“Sorry,” Keg says.

“It’s fine.” Beau kisses her again.

Keg lets her, tongue smarter than Caleb and hand pulling at Beau’s hair, probably to get them both to forget about— that.

It works. It works, and keeps working until Beau is pushing up Keg’s shirt to get at her chest, and Keg is laughing and letting go of Beau to get her own shirt off. Her breastband goes next, and then Beau returns the favor, taking off her own shirt.

“Remember these, too?” Beau asks, teasing.

“How could I forget?”

“Oh, come _on.”_

Keg laughs, a little awkward. “Sorry. I don’t— can we just ignore it, when I say shit?”

“Way ahead of you,” Beau says.

“Thanks,” and then Keg rewards her by dropping her mouth to Beau’s neck, sucking a mark into it before moving down, down, to her sternum then popping up again to start to unzip the sleeping bag.

Beau is hit with the cold air and hisses, groping at Keg’s hand to try and zip the bag back up. “It is _way_ too fucking cold to do that,” she says.

“I’m sorry I don’t want to suffocate while I’m down here,” Keg retorts, crawling back up to avoid just that.

“Then don’t go all the way down.”

“First time you’ve ever said that, I’m sure,” Keg grins.

Beau, despite herself, laughs. Shrugs. “Yeah.”

“I can use my hand.”

“Please.”

Keg’s a little too short to be able to kiss and finger her at the same time, though, so Beau gets her to do the kissing first. Especially considering it means that Beau can get to Keg, unbuttoning her breeches and slipping her hand between her legs.

Keg jerks a bit when Beau’s fingers slide over her, getting her fingertips wet before drawing back up to circle them over her clit, not bothering to tease.

Keg curses, and her hips roll again, this time into Beau’s hand.

Beau knows how to do this. Knows how to do it even better with Keg. Knows how to kiss her through it, knows what her breath sounds like when she gets close.

Keg was right. It’s better the second time.

Of course, Beau is a little biased, considering she’s getting Keg rocking against her fingers and coming with a gasp against her mouth, quiet and gorgeous.

Beau draws her hand back from under the waistband of Keg’s breeches, and Keg presses their foreheads together.

They stay there like that for a few seconds. Beau allows it, this time. Keg’s allowed a little something, after an orgasm. After one Beau gave her.

She’s slow to pull back, and Beau gives her a smile once she does. Keg kisses her.

Beau takes it, happily, before catching herself liking it, and pulling back, head hitting the ground a little too hard.

Keg’s eyes drop.

“That was my fault,” Beau tells her. “It’s fine. You needed something.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Keg hums, moving down a bit more so her own hand can push under Beau’s waistband, get frustrated, and order, “Take those off, it’s gonna be annoying.”

Beau rolls her eyes but knows that this is gonna be a bit more of an ordeal than Keg was, so she tilts her hips up, wiggling them down her legs and leaving them pretty much bunched around her knees. Too much further, and she’d have to wrestle with the sleeping bag, so Keg’s just gonna have to deal with Beau being unable to spread her legs that far.

“This is the _worst_ place to do this,” Keg says.

Beau laughs, a little too loudly. “Worse than some random slaver’s room after a funeral and a revenge killing?”

“Yeah. The revenge killing was hot.”

“What about the funeral?”

“Get help.”

Beau laughs, though she at least feels bad about it. She’ll blame it on the nudity.

“Can I leave marks? I didn’t ask, for the one.”

“Yeah, go wild. I woulda stopped you if I cared. You’re right there, anyway.”

Keg nods, and drops her mouth back to Beau’s neck, sucking another mark into her neck, next to the first. Her hand draws down Beau’s lithe stomach, but it has a destination in mind. Beau’s not hard yet, but she also hasn’t been touched at all.

Still, Keg’s hands are a little cold against her dick, and Beau reacts with a quick, sucked-in breath, wishing she could kiss Keg, suddenly.

She doesn’t want to make too much noise, she tells herself.

“You can make noise, you know,” Keg says, starting to stroke over her.

Beau makes a quiet, questioning noise. She’s a little distracted.

“Last time you kept trying to be quiet. But. You sound good. And there’s no one nearby. You can make noise.”

Beau almost laughs. Almost frowns. She settles for hitting the back of her head against the frozen ground again, and thinking about Keg’s hand instead of her words’ implications. The times she’s never heard them. The times she has.

Keg at least doesn’t apologize for them, this time.

Beau makes noise, almost out of spite. There’s a voice in the back of her head that sounds too much like her father, telling her to shut the fuck up, so Beau gasps and bucks into Keg’s hand and says her name, and Keg kisses her chest and neck and bites and sucks marks onto her tits, her collarbone, her throat and her jaw, and Beau gives her moans and whimpers in return, because _fuck_ it.

It’s the second time they’ve done this. Keg knows what she sounds like. Keg knows what she likes. Keg likes it. Keg thinks she’s— thinks her eyes are pretty, so Beau doesn’t scrunch them closed the whole time, and instead takes a few seconds to look at Keg, pull on her hair and watch Keg’s mouth, hand, tongue work. Keg thinks she’s beautiful when she smiles. Keg lov— 

That’s too much. Beau knows that, so she drops her head back to the ground, strokes her hand through Keg’s hair, and _really_ enjoys her first second time.

She shoves Keg’s hand away when she’s close, and hauls her up to kiss her. Keg’s hands flail a little, unsure of what to do and how to reach her dick again, and settle for bringing appreciative hands over Beau’s stomach and chest when she realizes that Beau is touching herself.

It’s not as good as it would be had Keg been doing it, but it’s better to get to kiss Keg, as Beau moans against her lips and presses closer, hips bucking as she comes.

“Shh. Shh,” Keg is saying, as Beau comes down, letting go of herself to cling to her back, half-afraid she’ll leave.

Keg presses their foreheads together again, and the hand not holding her up moves to take Beau’s, wrapped around her waist, lacing their fingers together. Beau laughs.

“Okay. You were right.”

“And you were perfect,” Keg replies, and Beau kisses her.

They settle, eventually, Keg’s weight too much for her small frame but still perfect to lay across Beau’s chest, the sleeping bag re-zipped from where it had been worked open with their shifting bodies.

“Me too,” Beau says.

“Huh?”

“I remember all of it. I think about it. Me too.”

“Yeah?”

“I still have your note.”

“Eloquent, right?”

“It was nice. I’d never gotten a note before.”

She can feel Keg’s smile against her chest. “Too bad.”

“Nah. I’d say it made you stand out,” Beau replies.

“More than the great sex did?”

Beau snorts. “Sure.” She doesn’t talk for a few seconds. “Don’t sneak out this time.”

“It’d be a little hard to,” Keg says, moving her elbow back and meeting the confines of the sleeping bag. She settles again. “But I won’t.”

“Good.”

“Talk to me in the morning.”

“I will.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”


End file.
